


Barriers Between

by beezyland



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Brief Sara Lance/Ava Sharpe, Drinking, F/F, First Words Soulmates AU, Implied Sexual Content, Non-Explicit Sex, Past Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, flirting when they should be hero-ing honestly, season 3 spoilers for both shows, slight re-write of certain things in season three because i can, spans a lot of years, the timelines match up so nicely i had to write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 13:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15686763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beezyland/pseuds/beezyland
Summary: In a world where the first words your soulmate says to you are tattooed on your skin, Alex Danvers has spent her whole life assuming her soulmate has a death wish and wondering why her words are blurry. Maybe because there are thirty-seven earths between them.After everything she's been through, from screw-up to assassin to captain, Sara Lance thinks her soulmate is better off never meeting her.Then they both attend the West-Allen wedding. Who says fate doesn't have a sense of humor?





	Barriers Between

_Someone who drinks like that is looking to make something go away._

Imagine Jeremiah and Eliza’s reaction when those words first appear on the back of their teenage daughter’s neck. The talk about soulmates quickly transitions into a scientific lecture on how alcohol affects the body and decision-making. Alex listens dutifully, resisting the urge to roll her eyes, but when her mom asks if she has any questions, there’s only one.

Why are my words blurry?

The doctor leans in close to examine Alex’s words, so much so Alex can feel her breath. It tickles. Her neck is so much more sensitive now. The doctor keeps murmuring under her breath that she’s never seen anything like it before. How comforting. She refers them to a specialist at the university in National City. There’s so little known about the words, how they come to be, why they come to be and why experiences vary so drastically. Jeremiah and Eliza refuse to let their daughter become a lab rat and that’s the end of that.

Kara tells her she’s lucky to have a soulmate at all. Krypton has no mysterious words that appear on your skin and link you to your soulmate. The scared little blonde grows distant and withdrawn whenever the subject comes up in school whether it be health class or Izzie Stevens showing off her words in the cafeteria at lunch.

Eliza does her best to comfort her girls. She tells Alex not to stress about it, that she has plenty of time to find the person who says her words. She tells Kara that she’s lucky (and the only reason Alex knows this is because she’s eavesdropping), that not having words just means Kara gets to choose and how wonderful that is.

A jealous and envious teenage girl, Alex brushes her fingers over the words on the nape of her neck, tensing slightly at the newfound sensitivity. At least there’s one thing she has that the super girl doesn’t.

 

…

 

_What are you looking to make go away?_

Whenever Sara catches herself absentmindedly reading those words on her arm, sometimes tracing over the blurry letters, she always finds herself thinking: _wow, my soulmate could quite possibly be a drug dealer_. Also, _my soulmate definitely isn’t Oliver Queen._

Sara had something of a reputation in high school. A boyfriend-stealing kind of reputation. In some cases, a soulmate-stealing reputation. Whatever. She got the nastiest looks from people who didn’t understand. Why go after anyone who doesn’t have your words? She gets that question a lot. If you ask Sara Lance, _why not_?

It’s all just so obviously stupid to her and she doesn’t understand how no one else gets it.

Just because she has some stupid words on her doesn’t mean she has to save her virtue for that one person. What if she doesn’t meet her soulmate until she’s fifty? She’s supposed to wait and expect her soulmate to have waited so they can reunite and share a sloppy, awkward, inexperienced first kiss?

No thanks. If Sara ever meets her soulmate, she is going to rock their world.

She has never been good at turning the other cheek when she wants something, when she finds herself attracted to someone. Turning down a romantic trip on a luxury yacht with a cute rich guy? That’s just not Sara’s style.

 

…

 

Waiting for her name to be called at her high school graduation, Alex is glad to be at the beginning of the alphabet. She can walk the stage early on, accept her diploma cover, shake hands with the principal and relax. After this summer, she’ll take off to Stanford and kiss Midvale goodbye.

Just as the announcer gets into names starting with D, Alex winces and grabs her neck. Her fingers come away wet, cold and yet, there’s a strange burning sensation. It gets stronger and stronger. Her heart starts beating hard and suddenly, it’s like she can’t breath like, like — she’s drowning. And she’s scared. No, not her. Her soulmate. She can almost feel her soulmate’s fear.

Alex starts coughing. Other graduates in their maroon caps and gowns swivel around to stare. The announcer pauses when Alex falls out of her chair, trying to cough up the phantom water in her lungs, but nothing helps.

Then everything goes black.

Alex wakes up two days later in a hospital bed with Kara’s big watchful eyes on her. Before Alex can even think to speak, ask for water because her mouth is dry and she’s sure she’s severely dehydrated, she’s stumbling out of bed and toward the mirror.

“Alex!” Kara flies (not literally, but almost) to her side.

“I-Is it gone?” Alex tries to sort through her dark hair with shaky hands. “I-Is m-my soulmate—”

“It’s still there,” Kara assures her. “Still blurry, but it’s there. Alex, your soulmate is alive.”

But she doesn’t relax, not even a little, not until Kara gives her a hand mirror for Alex to see the words herself. Her hands continue to shake, but relief floods her senses when she sees the ink. Before her hands can stop shaking, Eliza rushes in, ushers Alex back to bed and urges her to hydrate.

It hits Alex much later, how desperate she had been to check on her soulmate. She hasn’t even met this person and she doesn’t know if she could survive if she woke up and her words were just gone, if her soulmate, the one person in the world who might understand her just disappeared, died. Luckily, Alex doesn’t have to imagine it.

Whatever happened, she now knows her soulmate, whoever that may be, is a survivor. There’s strength in knowing that.

 

…

 

Sara has found hell and it’s called the Amazo.

Dr. Anthony Ivo teaches her skills in the field of biology and technology, but still, she skipped most of high school bio and spent most of her short stint in college journeying from party to party. Sometimes she just instinctively knows things, things she has no business knowing with a high school education and incomplete undergrad degree in partying.

She can work a microscope as easily as working a microwave or suggest an engineering solution to a biological problem. She instinctively knows things about the movement of the body and once used it to calculate the torque of a human bone under a certain amount of force. Ivo always reacts with skepticism, then pride, patting himself on the back for sparing her life.

Whenever she stops to wonder how this is possible, Sara’s eyes keep finding the words on her arm. Soulmates supposedly have a connection beyond, within, through the words. Could that extend to sharing knowledge? Traits? Feelings?

At this point, trapped on this ship with this man and his shady crew, meeting her soulmate feels more and more like an impossibility. Can her soulmate feel her fear every night when her body screams for rest, but the paranoia and fear keeps her up, jumping at every little sound? Can she try to send an SOS through the ink?

When Ivo snaps for her to prepare the next test subject, Sara lowers her head and does as she’s told. It’s best not to get her hopes up. All she has time to focus on right now is how to stay alive one day at a time.

 

…

 

Most people give her funny looks when they ask about her major and Alex confidently tells them she’s in the pre-med biomedical engineering program. She always knew what she wanted to do. She isn’t the type to spend a year undeclared and figuring it out. Alex jumps right in to what really interests her, finds the lectures fascinating and the coursework challenging, so much more stimulating than high school.

The parties and access to free alcohol are nice too.

Alex half-listens to her boyfriend drone on about the latest poem he wrote, fighting to be heard over the noise of the party. Alex mumbles “mhmm” and “oh” as she picks up a bottle of cheap malt whisky. What else do you expect from a frat party?

Whenever she has even a sip of alcohol, it tastes familiar. Even when it’s her first time trying it, it never feels like the first time. Alex likes to think she has her soulmate to thank for it. It totally takes the fun out of it, but she also kind of likes the thought that they have this connection and they’re both booze hounds apparently. The thought makes her warmer than the alcohol does.

_Someone who drinks like that is looking to make something go away._

Her spine tingles at the thought of her words, carefully looks around the room as she tosses back a shot. If she’s going to hear those words, _her_ words, it’d most likely be in a place like this or one of the clubs she gets lost in when she feels claustrophobic and wound too tight, like she might burst at any second.

It’s not that she goes to parties and clubs hoping to meet her soulmate.

It’s not like she drinks for fun most nights either.

If she’s being honest, most night she drinks and goes from party to party to forget.

Like tonight.

The anniversary of her father’s death.

“Maybe you should slow down, babe,” her boyfriend says.

Every time he calls her _that_ it’s like nails on a chalkboard.

Alex figures it’s just because he isn’t her soulmate, ignores him and pours herself a little more. He doesn’t understand, but her soulmate might, she thinks. It’s the last thing she thinks before downing another shot and turning off her brain completely.

 

…

 

The League of Assassins changes her, breaks her, rebuilds her into one of their own.

The night before Sara officially becomes a member, she steals as much time alone as she can, staring at the words on her arm, repeating them in her head, memorizing every stroke and curve of each individual letter. She knows she belongs to the League now, not to the words, not to the person they belong to.

The words are a weakness, a liability. All weakness and liability must be purged.

Sara knows she won’t be allowed to keep the words if she wants to keep her life, she’s gathered this much from the sight of her peers, from Nyssa.

The next day, the ceremony begins and Sara is given a torch. They don’t tell her to forget the words, no, because if she ever hears them she’s expected to kill whoever says them. Make it quick, clean, less to worry about in the long run. They don’t ask her to forget the words, no, they ask her to burn them off.

As fire licks her arm and the smell of boiling flesh fills the air, Sara hopes and prays she never meets her soulmate. No one deserves to be shackled to whatever it is she’s become.

_What are you looking to make go away?_

This place. Everything. Myself.

That’s the last thing she thinks before she blacks out.

The next day, a smile breaks Nyssa’s emotionless mask as she shares, “You lasted longer than most, Ta-er al-Sahfer.”

 

…

 

Sometimes Alex wakes up feeling like she’s just had the crap kicked out of her.

This isn’t anything new. It’s been going on for the last few years, less so these days, but still, it’s more common than not. She thinks it’s her soulmate again. Maybe they’re in trouble or an adrenaline junkie in a kind of fight club. Whatever it is, Alex copes with more drinking and numbing.

Then she ends up arrested for a DUI and offered a job with Hank Henshaw and the DEO.

On her first day of training Alex gets her ass handed to her.

 _Now you know how that feels_ , Alex thinks to herself (to her soulmate) as relaxes in a hot bath, letting the back of her neck rest against the cool edge of the porcelain tub with steam dancing over the surface of the water.

Alex likes to think her soulmate would smile at the jibe, maybe smirk. Sometimes she dreams about blue eyes. Sometimes when she closes her eyes, she pictures pouty lips, but the rest isn’t clear. Those are the nights she wakes up with a gasp and her bed has never felt so empty.

Most days Alex picks herself up off the training mat, calculates the best way to take her training partner down and more often than not, she wins.

 

…

 

Sara slips into a tub filled with ice and water, wincing as she does so.

She thinks it’s a kind of phantom pain because she isn’t injured. She’s gotten more careful over the years, more skilled. No, these most recent aches and pains are courtesy of her soulmate, she knows, feels it. Sometimes she wonders, maybe even worries. Could they be an assassin like her?

The thought makes her sad.

She might not know who her soulmate is, but she knows this isn’t the life she wants for them. Not even close.

Every time she quietly slits a throat, puts an arrow through someone, stabs her mark at the base of the skull, severing the spinal cord and brain stem, causing all body function to cease, Sara thinks of the words. She wonders if one day she’ll be sent to kill her soulmate, that they’ll utter her words as they bleed out, she’ll respond with whatever words they have on them and that’s it. The end of something that was fated, supposedly written in the stars.

What if her soulmate is another assassin and sent to kill her?

Sometimes the very thought has her hiding away, hyperventilating where no one can find her and shame her for her weakness. They might have burned the words off her body, but they’re written in her memory, on her soul. She tries to kill the words, kill the memory, but she can’t.

 _Sara Lance is gone,_ she reminds herself. Over and over and over.

All that matters is the mission. She is her mission. Failure is no longer an option. With her parents, not being the person they expected, not being Laurel, never doing half as well in school, lacking Laurel’s ambition, Sara had grown used to that kind of failure, but this is different. With Ra’s al Ghul, with Nyssa, with the League, failure means death.

She tries to tell herself the idea of destiny is bullshit anyway. This is something she’s always been certain of. She’s seen enough death. People make decisions, live and die. How can anyone say any of what has happened to her had been predetermined? She’s made too many mistakes to believe that this is the life whatever higher power intended for her.

“A lot on your mind?”

Sara leans her head back against the edge of the tub when she feels Nyssa’s lips against her shoulder. Like with most things, it’s easier to not think so she chooses not to. The act of choosing feels so novel it’s almost worth a choked out laugh and she’s going to take it where she can.

 

…

 

Alex is visiting home when it happens. It’s late. She’s sitting with her feet warmed by a bonfire, catching up with her mom and sister, choosing her words carefully, avoiding any suspicion they might have about what she really does for a living.

It started out as an itch on the back of her neck then pain, _a lot of pain_. Worse than at graduation. So much worse than any of the occasional aches. Even worse than the time she woke up sobbing, unable to differentiate reality from a dream of being burned alive. Suddenly, the world is spinning around her, bile creeping up her throat like she might vomit and all out of nowhere. She’s barely conscious, sweating profusely and shaking hard when Kara finally lifts her up and flies back to the house.

“Alex, honey,” Eliza says calmly. “I want to help you, but I can’t do that if you don’t tell me what’s happening.”  

Even when she tries to answer, tries to speak at all, she can’t, just curls into a ball and brings her trembling hands to the back of her neck. Three. There are three points on her neck that hurt more than anything she’s experienced before. It’s nothing like anything she’s encountered during her training or out in the field. It feels like she’s really been stabbed. Tears roll down her cheeks and she tries to grit her teeth and bear it. Then just like that, it’s gone.

Alex takes a deep breath and it’s like it never happened.

“I-I don’t know what came over me.” Alex wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater, blinks the wetness from her eyelashes. She doesn’t like what she sees when her eyes focus. The sympathy on Eliza’s face and the shock and sadness on Kara’s. “W-what is it?”

“I’m sorry.” Eliza takes both of her shoulder in her hands. “Your words are…gone.”

Scratch that. It isn’t like it never happened.

Once the shock dulls to a tingling, Alex feels it. She feels like a part of her has been ripped out. It feels like there’s an emptiness inside of her now and there’s nothing she can do about it. Both her mom and Kara swarm her, embrace her, swath her in warmth and love, but it does nothing. Alex almost wants the pain back. Pain is easier to deal with than the unending loneliness that now lives inside her.

Once her mom and Kara are asleep, in that hazy time between late night and early morning, Alex pours out a glass of scotch for her soulmate and drinks straight from the bottle.

It takes a long time, but Alex manages to convince herself she can live on.

Robbed of the opportunity to meet her soulmate, but it happens to people every day.  

Kara repeats what Eliza told her all those years ago. “Well, think of it this way. Now you get to choose who you get to spend the rest of your life with! And what’s better than that, right?”

Alex nods and smiles because she knows Kara is just trying to help, but clearly Kara doesn’t understand. She can’t. No one does. No one should.  

Time goes by. Months. A year. Another month.

Right when Alex has herself convinced that if she puts all her time and effort into being the best damn DEO agent ever recruited, if she can become Hank Henshaw’s second-in-command, that would provide some kind of life fulfillment. She almost has herself convinced when Supergirl joins the DEO and they’re locking up hostile aliens left and right. She can do this. She loves doing this. She might actually be at peace.

Then one day, her neck starts itching, a relentless itch that feels like it’s buried deep beneath her skin. It slowly drives Alex crazy. When Kara takes a look, she gasps.

“What?” Alex demands to know. “What is it?”

“Your words!” Kara shrieks. “They’re back!”

“The exact same words? Are you sure?”

“Um, I’m pretty sure.” Kara grabs for her phone and takes a photo as Alex holds her hair out of the way and tries to breathe. She examines the photo, zooming in, zooming out, squinting her eyes, holding the phone closer then farther away. It’s her words alright, the exact same words, just as bold and just as blurry. “Does this mean your soulmate’s a zombie?”

Alex hears Kara’s question, the humor in it, her attempt to lighten the mood, but doesn’t answer, _can’t_. She can barely make sense of it herself.

Standing in front of the mirror, holding her phone behind her and snapping a picture of the words becomes apart of Alex’s daily routine. She does it first thing in the morning and it’s the last thing she does before bed at night. She knows she’d know if they were about to disappear again. The last time hurt enough. She just has to be sure for her own peace of mind. Days, weeks, months go by, but the words remain. It eases her stress because they seem here to stay, but also heightens her stress because what the fuck and who the hell even?

“You’re a piece of work, you know that?” Alex says aloud.

Now that Alex’s life is filled with extranormal operations, the same thing can quite probably be said about her.

 

…

 

The Lazarus Pit brings her back.

It restarts Sara’s heart, gives her renewed motor function, gives her her life back, but not the words. She still has that pink burn on her right arm. Running her fingers over it still tickles. She knows the connection between the two of them is still alive. She can’t even begin to guess what her soulmate must make of all this.

It’s probably for the best that the words don’t come back. It would only be a reminder of the life she will never have with someone who would be afraid of or disgusted by the things she’s done, the number of people she’s killed, a number she can’t even ballpark anymore.

She almost wishes Laurel would have let dead assassins lie. Not almost. She does wish Laurel would have just let her stay dead. It isn’t natural for her to be back here. It doesn’t _feel_ right. Even after Constantine gets her her soul back, the bloodlust just puts more lives in danger for her one. Sara leaves Team Arrow because of it, leaves Star City entirely, speaks to no one less she find her soulmate in this state.

No one should be tied to a monster.

Then Rip Hunter finds and recruits her.

Sara likes all of the Legends.

Well, most of the Legends.

Most of them haven’t found their soulmate and aren’t tripping over themselves to.

Except Professor Stein, but he doesn’t wax poetic about his wife too much. Science and the possibilities of time travel on the other hand…

Then there are the Hawks who make her arm itch. They take the whole concept of soulmates to another level. (Snart suggests a drinking game anytime the words “soulmate”, “past life” and “reincarnation” are spoken. His partner in literal crime loves it.) Not to mention, the Hawks fight _a lot_. Sometimes literally. Carter is always frustrated and Kendra always conflicted. Sara keeps it to herself, but they almost make her glad she never met hers.

“It’s kind of exciting, what we’re doing here, don’t you think?” Ray smiles, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It’s almost too much sometimes, tempts Sara to go find Snart and Rory, company much more her sullen speed.

“Sure.” She’s about to walk away, but then Ray looks like he’s just been struck by something that washes his resting overexcited puppy face away. “What is it, Ray?”

“I was just thinking, what if I meet my soulmate in a completely different time other than our own? How would that work?”

“I wouldn’t lose sleep over it,” Sara insists. “I don’t think it works that way.”

“No one knows how it works, Miss Lance,” Stein joins in. “That’s precisely why the study of soulmates is so fascinating. Have you ever tried applying science to the words? Biologists dedicate their entire lives to uncovering the mysteries of the words and there are so many theories floating around out there, but then again, they’re _biologists_ so—”

“And what if you dragging me onto this hunk of tin metal is keeping me from meeting my soulmate, huh, Gray?” Jax still isn’t too happy about Stein essentially roofie-ing him and dragging him on their little time adventure nor should he be.

“Don’t worry, Mister Jefferson, you won’t miss meeting your soulmate,” Rip assures him. “Careful measures are taken by the Time Masters to ensure everyone finds their soulmate in the appropriate time _if_ they find them in their lifetime that is.”

“So we have those bastards to blame?” Sara helps herself to Rip’s fancy liquor collection.

“On the contrary, Miss Lance,” Rip says as if retaining his formalities means controlling the reins of this misfit team of irrelevance he assembled. “The Time Masters have no say in who ends up with who, no one knows who is in charge of that, why or how they come about. The Time Masters merely analyze and tweak in order to protect the timeline.”

And Rip is from a future that probably has a lot more knowledge on the words, studies, research, experiences, and whatnot. Not wanting to get into the scientific or the philosophical especially with this group, Sara simply tips her glass to the captain of their motley crew and tosses back too expensive scotch too fast.

 

…

 

She chooses Maggie.

Alex wants Maggie to be her soulmate more than anything in the world.

Maggie who she can finally be her entire self with, Maggie who smiles at her like no one else ever has, Maggie who makes her stomach do summersaults.

“It’s better this way, right?” Alex asks on a quiet night spent in bed together. Gifts from the engagement party are stacked high on the coffee table. That collage of photos sits on an easel in the corner of their loft.

“Of course.” Maggie lets her fingers dance up and down the length of Alex’s arm, then looks over at her with a biting smile. “What if our soulmates turn out to be guys? I’d run away with you in a heartbeat.”

Alex smiles and how can she not kiss her after that?

Alex wants Maggie to be her soulmate, but knows she isn’t.

Maggie who can be distant and defensive (with reason) and never bats an eye at keeping secrets, Maggie who has someone else’s words on her ribcage, Maggie who doesn’t want kids.

In the end, they want different things. It’s entirely ironic how it wasn’t the words that ultimately make them both walk away, but kids. Alex knows what she wants for herself in the long run and in between crying alone in her bed, she runs her fingers over her words, clinging to the idea that maybe there’s someone out there for her that wants the same.

 

…

 

“Hey, boss, see any nurses you like this time?” Mick asks.

“Nah,” Jax interject with a laugh. “Cap only likes ‘em before she was born.”

“Shut up, both of you.” Sara digs an elbow into each of their sides, which only makes Jax laugh even more. Mick tries to light his damn cigar for the third time since she arrived and Sara finally confiscates it.

As obnoxious as the boys are, this is kind of nice. The Baby Dominator is back where it belongs, Martin got to Central City 2017 in time for the birth of his first grandchild and now all the Legends are here together to offer presents (most of which they got Gideon to fabricate) to the newest member of their family.

Sara is content to stand back, watching Martin with his wife, their daughter and grandchild. The soft way Martin looks at Lily is so reminiscent of her own father. The glances Martin keeps sneaking his wife are less familiar. They’re soulmates, everyone knows. It’s obvious. Their shared gaze could spark a fire, set the whole world ablaze and neither would care to look away.

Even after all this time, even with her life surprisingly stable despite the instability that comes with being a time traveler, Sara still isn’t sure if she wants (or deserves) that, but she can’t be bothered by the thought that fate is lurking around the corner at all times. She has a job to do, a team to lead, and that’s all she really has time for at the moment.

 

…

 

Alex walks into an engagement party for people she doesn’t even know, people who live on another earth, trying to remember how all of this was her idea in the first place. She tries to use it as a distraction, letting Kara introduce her to all of her friends. It’s nice and easy for a while, but about fifteen minutes in, Alex is so ready to hit the bar. Before she can even pour herself a shot, her words start to _burn_.

No, not again.

Alex apologizes to Cisco who had been trying to argue about Earth-1 verses Earth-38 and whose cuisine (re: pot stickers) reign supreme and drags her sister into the restroom. The fluorescent lighting isn’t helping her eyes that are so sensitive all of a sudden, her throat dry, heartbeat quickening for no good reason at all.

“Alex, what’s wrong?”

“Is it still there?” Alex brushes her short hair aside so her sister can see. “Something’s happening, Kara. I can feel it.”

“Yeah, it’s there—Whoa.” Kara’s eyes go wide.

Alex spins around, ready to give her sister a shake. “Whoa? What’s that supposed to mean? What did you see?”

“Alex, don’t freak out.”

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”

Kara sets her hands on Alex’s shoulders in a way she probably hopes is comforting. It’s not. “Maybe… Maybe it’s time.”

“Time?” Alex’s voice cracks.

“Maybe this is where it happens.” Kara takes her sister’s trembling hands to steady her. “Maybe this is where you meet your soulmate.”

Alex laughs and it sounds full of panic even to her own ears. “No. No! I can’t! It can’t— We’re on a different earth! That can’t be possible! …Can it?”

“Hold on.” Kara is careful as she moves Alex’s hair aside and takes a photo with her phone. Luckily, she doesn’t give the phone to Alex to hold because she would have dropped it. “Look! Your words aren’t blurry anymore. Maybe because there aren’t thirty-seven other earths between you for once.”

Alex can’t do much more than grip Kara’s hands tight in hers.

Then the door swings open. Alex turns to see blonde hair gathered back, the brightest blue eyes she’s ever seen, and a familiar pouty, pink mouth poised to speak, but no words follow. The world slows to a crawl. Before a single word can escape anyone, Alex pushes past her and practically runs out the door.

 

…

 

Though she would never admit to it, Sara has wondered when and where she might meet her soulmate. In all those silly daydreams, the bathroom never made the list. Reality can be strange.

Sara feels the pull towards the woman with the short hair for the rest of the night. She calls on ever skill she acquired during her time with the League to be discreet while totally checking her out. Her hair is somewhere between brown and red, eyes very much brown and very much reminiscent of a deer caught in the headlights just before getting struck by a truck. The dress she’s wearing has a sweet cutout on the back, showing off a delicious stretch of skin. Sara feels the pull and it’s strong, magnetic. _An inevitability_ , her traitor of a mind whispers.

Kara apologizes for her sister, Alex. Her _sister_.

_“Hey, do you want to get a drink when this is all over?”_

_“I think you wanna meet my sister.”_

Fate is laughing at her right now. Also, fate is a massive asshole.

Not that the woman who shouldered past her with the strength of a linebacker is her soulmate. They are yet to speak the words after all. Maybe it’s better they don’t. With her quick getaway, Alex seems content to avoid it, run from it, for reasons possibly (but hopefully not) similar to Sara’s. She thinks of all the phantom aches and pains over the last few years.

No, Supergirl’s sister can’t be the same as her. Not possible. No way.

Sara tries to ignore what happened, what’s happening, ignore _her_ , but she can’t stop noticing Alex drinking alone, downing hard liquor like water. If she didn’t feel the invisible string between them, tightening and tightening, trying to bring them together at last, Sara still would have approached her at the bar. She’s hot. It would be a fun way to spend the little time she has off the Waverider and in her own time for once.

As she maneuvers through the crowded room, Sara tells herself it isn’t because of fate. She does it because she wants to and she could use a drink too.

“Someone who drinks like that is looking to make something go away.”

As Sara tosses back her own shot, Alex watches, taken aback. There’s a flash of something in the woman’s really pretty eyes, something that betrays her passive face. Sensing Alex’s mounting discomfort, Sara pours herself a shot and knocks it back. Everyone loves a drinking buddy.

Alex watches her, mumbles, then, “What are you looking to make go away?”

Sara had braced herself for the words, but she still wasn’t prepared. She feels what she thinks Alex felt a moment ago and hides it just as well if not better. Her mind might be in a race with her pulse, but she works the bedroom eyes, leans coolly against the bar, keeps her voice smooth even as she insists she just loves the taste of scotch.

Before she can ask, bring up the s-word, Alex is talking about her recently called off engagement and swallowing around another shot with vigor. It’s now clear that this woman is the reason Sara wakes up some mornings feeling like she went on a bender the night before even when she’s sure she didn’t have a single drink.

She didn’t catch him cheating.

Not a _he_ at all.

A _her_.

Content to ignore the dreaded s-word, which Alex seems hellbent to, Sara pours another shot for each of them and holds it up for a toast.

“To making things go away.”

“And loving the taste of scotch.”

 

…

 

Alex found her soulmate.

And, yeah, okay, she’s freaking out. Anyone would! Finding your soulmate on another earth, weeks after ending your most significant relationship to date. What the hell, universe?

Now?! Here of all places?! Really?!

Alex knows she still isn’t over Maggie. She feels it in her bones, thinks about it around the clock. She knows this and even told her soulmate who can probably feel it too. Alex hasn’t even thought about her next move, how to even move forward and of course that’s when her soulmate just pops into her life. Technically, Alex is the one who went to her earth, but still. She doesn’t know what to do with any of this.

Ignoring all the soulmate stuff and getting drunk together seems the most natural.

Alex tells herself to take it slow.

It sounds like a solid course of action, but then they’re hooking their arms together to down their next set of shots and when they touch, even through her soulmate’s super soft sleeve, Alex lets out a silent breath. That’s where it is. That’s where her soulmate’s words are. Alex can _feel_ it and it’s like nothing she’s ever felt before. Just the slightest contact, not even skin-to-skin, makes her flush more than alcohol ever could. This is dangerous.

And it’s too late now.

Before she even knows what’s happening, her back is against a wall and now it’s their lips touching. Alex can feel the heat coming off her, from the hand that’s on her cheek and the one that’s on the exposed skin of her back creeping upward as if she _knows_. Feeling slim, calloused fingers encircled with silver rings brush over her words, Alex breaks the kiss with a whimper. _So_ sensitive. So good. So right.

Alex’s hands are everywhere, on shoulders, on a muscular back, moving lower as they continue to kiss. It’s sloppy and perfect. The blonde’s fingers wind into Alex’s short hair, tugging just rough enough, running along her words yet again. Alex feels her knees give out, but her soulmate, who is evidently stronger than she looks, has her pinned to the wall by her hips and a knee between Alex’s legs. It’s intoxicating and yet not enough.

They don’t even know each other’s names! Wait, or do they? Maybe. It’s all kind of fuzzy.

It’s also kind of hard to ask when Alex has her soulmate’s tongue pressed against hers.

They have time for names later. They have the rest of their lives apparently.

When they have sex that very same night, after a blur of a journey to a strange hotel room on a strange earth, forgoing talking in favor of intense eye contact, Alex suspects she might be having a heart attack or a religious experience. It feels like a dream, too perfect, too good to be real. Who knew she had the capacity to _feel so much_?

When her soulmate touches her, Alex feels the breath leave her body, like she’d just had the wind knocked out of her in the gentlest of ways. When the blonde presses light kisses down the length of Alex’s very naked, practically buzzing body, each featherlight kiss feels like she’s being touched by fire, marked without the pain. She’s so fucking sensitive and so overwhelmed by the simplest stimulation, they barely get started, just some light touching and Alex comes, shaking, curling around her soulmate, needing her closer, flushed against her. Never felt more vulnerable or more alive. Never had things seemed so clear and yet deliciously incoherent.

Her soulmate lets her weight and warmth rest against Alex, tilts her head to look up with her blonde hair everywhere and a fucking smug smirk. Alex kisses the expression off her face and flips them over with a little help from her DEO training that seems to take her soulmate by surprise, excites her, judging by the shape of her grin, but instead of putting her in a sleeper hold, Alex returns the favor twice…three times.

(Every time her soulmate kisses a little too close to her words, Alex mutters, “Wait,” and redirects her with her mouth, lips and teeth. For some reason, even drunk on whisky and drunk on the energy and fucking weird instant bond between them, Alex can’t bear her seeing the words. At least, not yet.)

 

…

 

Sara kept telling herself they’d talk in the morning, maybe after a little room service and another round of life changing sex. Yeah, she feels a little like an idiot for discounting and discrediting fate and soul marks for so long because the sight of Alex after the second orgasm, lips parted, trying to catch her breath, is something Sara wouldn’t mind seeing every day for the rest of her life. They don’t get to talk or the other round Sara envisions because the next thing she knows, Alex is falling out of bed and sneaking out.

That shouldn’t be as cute as it is. That shouldn’t sting as much as it does either.

It can only be karma for all the times in all those different decades where Sara had to slip away and run off to another time without so much as a glance back. Touché, fate.

She tells herself she’s content to let Alex set the pace and call the shots, but the bed that had been comfortable and warm last night already feels too big and too empty, which is ridiculous. She doesn’t even know Alex, not really, but after last night, she wants to, might even need to. It’s all… a lot.

Still, Sara is Sara so her default is to play it cool and she can’t help, but tease just a little outside of the church. If they’re bonded for all eternity, Alex better get used to it. Sara finds Alex adorable, but confusing. They’re soulmates, they found each other, they had cosmic sex, but they’re out-of-sync somehow. There were fireworks as advertised, but happily ever after seems far off.

“Yo, where’d you disappear to last night?” Jax comes up right beside her inside of the church, constantly tugging and adjusting his outfit. “Making use of that hotel room you got when you coulda stayed at Gray’s like the rest of us?”

“You and Mick enjoy your sleepover? Did you have a pillow fight without me?” Sara grabs ahold of his gray tie and flips it up at his face. “Someone cleans up nice. Did ya get Gideon to make these threads for you?”

“Duh. I’ve been living on a time ship with no income whatsoever of course an AI from the future dressed me.” She tries to mess with his yellow pocket square and he slaps her hand away. “What’s with you? You’re making small talk about clothes.”

“Nothing.” Sara catches sight of Alex again, a little more at ease with her sister at her side, but still so endearingly awkward. “It’s a beautiful…beautiful day for a wedding.”

Jax’s face scrunches before his brows shoot upward when it dawns on him. “Oh shit. You met your soulmate!” He starts looking from side to side around the church, nearly bouncing on his toes. “Alright. Who? So Rip was right. Does this mean you’re leaving the team? Who’s gonna be captain now that you’ve falling _in lo—ow!_ Fuck!”

“Your mom would smack you too if she heard the way you’re talking in church.” Sara is quick to remind him. It’s her big sister duty and he’s being such an annoying little brother right now. “What makes you assume that?”

“If you forgot, I spend a significant amount of time merged with someone who found his soulmate. There’s a vibe.”

“You rang?” Cisco pops up next to them with his best Lurch impression. When Sara and Jax deny him the satisfaction of a reaction, he adds, “Because I’m Vibe. It’s my code name.” When Sara and Jax still don’t respond, he scoffs. “Sheesh, tough crowd. Did you leave your sense of humor in 1938?”

Once Cisco runs off to join Barry near the altar, Jax turns back to Sara. Like hell he’s going to let this one slide. “So? I’m going to find out sooner or later. You might as well tell me and save both of us the time.”

“You don’t tell anyone,” Sara hisses. “It’s all new and I’d prefer to keep it quiet.”

“Scout’s honor.”

Sara sighs, doesn’t buy it whatsoever. “To Supergirl’s right.”

Jax couldn’t be more obvious when his eyes zero in on Alex still nervously fidgeting in the front pew and scratching behind her ear. Her hair is just long enough to hide the words Sara knows are there, that Sara spoke, but for some reason, Alex doesn’t want her to see. That’s confusing too. Maybe things are different on her earth.

“Damn!” Jax lightly punches her arm and Sara socks him back at least three times as hard. He rubs at his shoulder and frowns, but doesn’t mention it. “Well, why are you throwing punches at me when you could be over there with her?”

“It’s not that simple, Jax.”

“Isn’t the whole point of the words to make things simple?”

“Not when you’re the captain of a time ship and your soulmate is apparently from another earth.”

“Damn.”

“Yep.” Sara doesn’t even think to smack him for cursing in church, already lost in her thoughts. If there’s anything she’s learned as a Legend, it’s that when things get sticky, improvise.

 

…

 

Alex has never felt more awkward in her entire life.

Outside the church. What even was that?

Despite all the awkwardness, mostly on her part, Alex can admit, it’s her first instinct to team up with Sara when the nazis crash the wedding. She definitely feels certain advantages to having Sara near. Her reflexes seem sharper, her movement faster, punches harder. She also finds she can multitask better, like taking down men twice her size while also watching (admiring) Sara outmaneuver her own assailants. She also seems to know what Sara is going to do before she does it, allowing the two to work in perfect synchronization. It’s almost like a choreographed dance.

Watching the way Sara moves, so smooth and well-trained, Alex now knows why even in the most impossible situations, even when she was still green and training, if she trusted her instincts she always had a chance to fight her way out. She realizes it had to have been Sara guiding her hand without either of them having any idea. Even though they don’t know each other, their connection is true and strong.

Out of everyone, they’re the only two to bag a bad guy and don’t even need superpowers to do it. After taking down Prometheus, their eyes meet and Alex feels betrayed by her own body when her heart skips. Alex wants to kiss her, blames the adrenalin and the words on her skin and how good Sara looks after leaving a trail of unconscious bodies on the church floor. The need is potent, urgent and— No! They’re in a church for crying out loud!

They settle for a high-five and even that smallest bit of skin against skin makes her feel like she’s found home in a completely different universe.

 

…

 

Sara’s concerned about Alex.

To be fair, she would have been concerned about anyone she slept with and sent into a panic spiral (if she stayed long enough to witness it that is), but Alex is her soulmate so the concern is almost enough to rattle Sara and not much rattles her these days. They barely know each other and _really_ need to talk, but they have a fight ahead and an entire multiverse to save.

It’s slowly becoming clearer and clearer that there are many different sides to Alex: brazen booze hound, great kisser, bundle of morning after awkward and a skilled fighter who will take on an army if it means protecting her sister, willing to take that protectiveness to the point of letting impending failure unhinge her.

Sara gets it, especially that last one so she checks in with Alex, stops her before she pushes herself off a metaphorical ledge (or tries to seize an entire rebel base), shares about Laurel. That last one isn’t something she’d dive into for any ol’ random hookup. It’s cool that they both have sisters they’d do anything for. It’s cool they have that in common. Maybe it isn’t a coincidence that they do.

Maybe now would be a good time to mention it, the words, the way their bond stretches across the multiverse, but then Alex is pacing, desperate to get back to her earth, back to _Maggie_ and —

Ouch.

Sara calls upon her assassin training yet again, blinks away the stab of jealousy, the _but you’re my soulmate. Mine!_ Soulmates are soulmates. They aren’t supposed to be with other people. That isn’t how it’s supposed to work!

Somehow Sara manages to think of the people she loved before meeting Alex, how real that love had been and how it still is even if she’s no longer with them. She tries to imagine meeting Alex weeks after fleeing the League and leaving Nyssa behind. Grasping that empathy and holding on tight, Sara swallows down any mention of the words, tells Alex to trust her instincts and the battle continues.

 

…

 

Alex didn’t know Dr. Martin Stein beyond a quick introduction at the wedding rehearsal that feels like it happened ages ago. She doesn’t know Dr. Martin Stein, but she feels the loss of him. She’s sure she feels everything Sara won’t let show.

She doesn’t attend the funeral. She sneaks onto the Waverider instead.

“Hey.”

Alex twists around with her fists up just to come face-to-face with Sara, her hair straight and loose, hands tucked into the pockets of her long, all-black coat. “Hi.”

“Agent Danvers, are you stowing away on my ship?” Sara smirks as she takes slow, calculated steps toward her. “Are you looking to go on a joyride through time?”

Alex drops her fists, loosening, but only slightly. “Does that line normally work for you?”

“Would you believe me if I said that was the first time I used it?”

“I would,” Alex replies. “Mostly because it’s terrible and you really shouldn’t.”

“You’d be surprised how many semi-historical figures dig a time traveling ninja.” In an attempt to process that, Alex squints and shakes her head. Despite everything, Sara somehow finds it in her to smile, but just a little. “So what brings you aboard my ship, agent?”

“I just thought I’d check in,” Alex answers, her voice tinged with nerves. She can attack violent criminals and even aliens with zero hesitation, but it’s hard to have this dumb conversation. Then again, it is a dumb, necessary conversation with her soulmate so yeah, maybe the nerves are justified. “You’ve been consistently checking in with me pretty much since we met so…I figured it’s my turn.”

“That’s kind of you.” Sara lays her hand on Alex’s arm and she shuts her eyes tight, trying to fight the feeling, the voice in the back of her head that demands, _closer_. When she opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is Sara’s blue ones staring right back at her.

Alex can give into her instinct to yank Sara closer and crush their mouths together just as sloppy and perfect as the time before, but the hurt is palpable. Alex can feel it no matter how far Sara manages to hide behind her cool and her flirty. Alex just wants to make it go away for her. Before she can express any of that, voices down the hall interrupt her rushing thoughts. Multiple sullen voices cut through the quiet along with the clinking of liquor bottles.

“My room is right over here,” Sara says, leading her through the ship. “Privacy is not a luxury we have, but we still try.”

“Yeah… Um, I’m sorry about your teammate, Professor Stein…”

Sara nods, shoving her hands back into the pockets of her coat. “Me too.”

Once they’re inside Sara’s room, which is bigger than expected for a vessel that travels through time, the blonde sheds her black coat, wearing more black underneath. The room is sparsely decorated. Essentials and weird decorative knick knacks that must have come with the room. No identifying photos. Nothing that really tells her anything about who Sara is though Alex has the sneaking suspicion that there are weapons hidden all around them, not much different from her own loft.

“As you can see, I’m in one piece and functioning.” Sara sits on the edge of her bed that has a fur throw over it while Alex remains standing. She knows if she sits down it could give way to the touching and then she’ll never get out the words she needs to say. “Losing Martin…it’s rough. It’s going to be for a while I think, but we still have a job to do.”

“To fix time,” Alex says. “Traveling through time, fixing time on your earth, a completely different earth than mine.”

Sara nods slowly. “The job’s a little more complicated than that, but sure. Let’s go with that.”

“So, are we just going to go our separate ways without talking about it?” When Alex realizes she’s pacing, she stops and rubs the back of her neck. It’s a habit that she’s entirely hyper aware of now that she’s in front of the person who spoke the words there. “You know.”

Her eyes drop to the pink burn that Sara doesn’t even try to hide, so comfortable in her own skin. Alex’s eyes drift up to meet Sara’s blues. Who knows how long they lock before Sara’s staring at the floor, contemplative.

“I never thought this would actually happen,” Sara confesses. “Sure, I had the words so, of course, I knew there was someone out there, _you,_ but after living a life like mine… For a while there, I thought we were better off.”

Alex drops down onto the edge of Sara’s bed. “How could you ever think that?”

Sara presses her lips into a rueful smile. “If you knew half the things I’ve done…”

“I’ve seen the things you’ve done. You’re a hero and a badass.”

“Something we have in common.” Sara bites the tip of her tongue then shakes her head as if reminding herself to stay on track. “I did a lot a bad things in the past, some I didn’t have a choice in, some I did and now, with the Legends, I know I can’t change what I did or even atone for it, but maybe, fixing time…”

“Now you choose to do good,” Alex finishes for her. “And I’m guessing time travel doesn’t leave you with a lot of downtime to figure out…” Alex motions between them. “This.”

Sara takes Alex’s hand in hers and just that has Alex biting her lip to keep from making a sound that would probably be obscene and inappropriate especially given the conversation they’re having.

“And after seeing how protective you are of your sister, I’m guessing you aren’t about to drop everything for a joyride through space and time.” Sara traces over Alex’s raw knuckles with a feather-light touch that’s almost enough to make Alex forget she even has a sister.

“Maybe one day,” Alex says very quietly.

Sara’s lips tug to one side in a smile. “I can definitely work with one day.”

“Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do for you?”

Sara hums, shifting her lips from side to side as her eyes trail down Alex’s body very slowly, very deliberately.

Alex’s eyes go wide when she realizes the implication. “We probably shouldn’t…”

“You’re right.” Sara bounces her head in a nod, but it isn’t lost on Alex how Sara shifts ever so closer until their legs press together. “You know, before, I never really bought stock in the whole soulmate sex will be the best you ever have. Now, my memories of the other night might be a little fuzzy around the edges, but I think I’ve been converted.”

“Sara…”

“So she does know my name,” Sara rasps right against Alex’s ear, sinking her fingers into the leather of Alex’s jacket and tugging playfully. “I’ll level with you. I just… After everything...I wanna feel that again, sober… Well, mostly sober.” Alex shifts away just enough so she can see Sara’s eyes, so open and wavering just on the edge of vulnerable. “Please? Alex…”

“Fuck it,” Alex murmurs, just before she gives into the pull. Their mouths crash into each other and it’s just as sloppy and perfect as the first time. The relief floods her body just to be replaced with an even greater need. Alex swears she feels like she’s on drugs. There can be no high greater than this.

The kisses soften as Sara slides Alex out of her leather jacket and lets it drop to the floor. Alex tugs her shirt over her head and meets Sara’s half-lidded eyes filled with something like worship, something like love. Her stare alone makes Alex’s skin prickle and a shiver run through her. She can’t call it what it really feels like, _actual_ worship, _actual_ love, not when they still don’t really know each other.

Not yet, but maybe one day.

 

…

 

Cisco twists in his swivel chair, surprise on his face when he sees Sara saunter into the lab. “Hey Space Mom, I thought you and your crew took off already?”

“I’ve got a few errands to run before we ship off, including a new toy for you to play with.” Sara hands over one of the time courier the Legends pilfered from the Time Bureau. “It’s a device that allows the user to transport through time and space without the need of a timeship.”

Cisco whistles. “Snazzy.”

“I figured you already have the technology. How much tweaking could this need to be able to transport between earths too?” Sara leans forward, sure to put on her sweetest smile.

Cisco takes in the sight of the courier and lights up like a nerd visiting the science museum for the very first time just like Sara hoped. He somehow reigns it in and his expression turns thoughtful. “Let me guess. You want it so you can transport through time and between earths, but Earth-38 specifically, right? To see your little—”

“Soulmate.”

Once the surprise passes, Cisco eyes Sara like he sees her in a different light or something and it accomplishes the mission, but she isn’t too comfortable with this information being out. “No promises. First I have to see what I’m working with—”

“A genius like you? I’m sure it’s cake.” Sara grins, but tries to keep from appearing too smug. Cisco holds up a finger and dashes across the room.

“You know, I remember another Lance coming to me with a request about a certain item.” He holds up a photograph of himself beaming at the camera alongside Laurel in full Black Canary wear. Oh, how she misses all that black leather and yet not at all. “I got a personal photo with Black Canary in return.”

“Well, if you want a selfie with the captain of a timeship…”

Cisco winces playfully. “No offense, but time travelers no one has ever heard of don’t hold as much weight. The Black Canary has her own statue.” Ouch. But Cisco smiles softly and handles the photo of him and Laurel with such care that Sara refrains from slugging him. “I’ll get right on that and ping the Waverider with an update.”

“Cisco, you’re the best.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re just lucky I am a sucker for Lance sisters and a good soulmates story!”

 

…

 

“Hold still.”

“It tickles.”

Sara bites down on the pen cap between her teeth as she glances up at Alex. “Agent Danvers, did I just find your weak spot?”

Alex rolls her eyes and Sara grins around the pen cap, going back to work, writing on the palm of Alex’s hand. They’re standing in a clearing by the water’s edge with the Waverider idling, waiting on one last passenger. Sara’s wearing Alex’s leather jacket and Alex rocks Sara’s long, black coat. It felt like a fair trade when they were both getting dressed and talking about their earths, their families, their favorite forms of martial arts.

“There! All done.”

Alex takes her hand back and flips it over, squinting at the writing there. “I’m a bio-engineer, not so much a code monkey. Am I supposed to know what any of this means?”

“I’m sure your fancy government agency has someone who’ll take one look and run with it. Gideon said it should let you contact the Waverider in case you ever need anything or if you ever just wanna see this face.” Sara points to her smile, dimples popping and everything.

Alex’s brow furrows, taking Sara’s hand and turning it over. A mirror image of what she wrote on Alex’s hand is also on Sara’s, the exact same handwriting in the exact same place, even the smudge.

“Holy shit,” they curse in unison.

This soulmates thing is weird.

Alex snatches the marker from Sara’s loose grip and takes Sara’s other hand. They both watch as Alex draws a smiley face on the back of Sara’s hand and a smiley face appears on the back of Alex’s. A perfect replica.

“Or I guess we can just talk by writing on ourselves too,” Sara adds.

“I used to write reminders on my hands all the time. Did they ever appear on you?”

Sara shakes her head no. “You didn’t happen to have algebra equations or Spanish verb conjugations mysteriously appear on your thighs, did you?”

“You used to cheat on tests by writing on your thighs?”

“They were reminders! I’d wearing a skirt. It was foolproof.” Sara grins wide and Alex knows she shouldn’t find the anecdote as endearing as she does. “Nope. I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this, but I guess now you have no excuse to be a stranger.”

“Same to you.”

“Totally normal.”

“Yeah, that's kinda how we roll, huh.”

Sara’s face becomes something more serious as she reaches out and cups the nape of Alex’s neck, touching her words one last time. Her breath catches just like the very first time and Alex lets her eyes close, savoring the feeling, the warmth and closeness, for the last time in what promises to be a while.  

They go their separate ways after a hug that doesn’t feel like enough, not at all.

 

…

 

_Jax left the team_

_How’s that for a christmas/birthday gift_

Sara stares at the words she scribbled across her arm, twirling a ballpoint pen between two fingers. It sounds like an invitation to a pity party, but everyone else on the ship is already asleep or passed out somewhere and Sara has had just enough to drink to not care how it might look. Fuck it.

 _Happy birthday_ appears across her skin in very precise, pretty handwriting that’s a perfect midpoint between print and cursive. What might be an attempt at a birthday hat doodle appears over the _happy_ and it gets a smile out of Sara. _Why’d he leave?_

_Martin_

_Didn’t feel like he could contribute to the team like before_

_Couldn’t make him stay some captain I am_

After taking up the whole length of her right arm to get that out, she feels a tingle on her calf and shoves up her jean leg as high as possible so she can read the writing there:

 _I don’t think it’s a reflection of you. Maybe you just have to trust him to know what’s best for him_. _It never seems like it at the time but not all change is bad_

 _Insightful_ , Sara writes just above down the slope of her foot and hopes she spelled it right. She hopes Alex knows she’s a damn good speller when sober.

A smiley face appears just above her ankle bone and fuck how she wishes she could really see Alex smile. When she’s on missions, when her mind is occupied with anachronisms and keeping her team safe and alive, it’s easy to forget she has a soulmate out there and she isn’t with her by choice. In the quieter moments, where Sara sits with her feet up, twirling a pen between her fingers, it’s a little more difficult. Painful even.

“I know that look,” Leo drawls from where he’s leaning in the doorway. “Unlucky in love?”

“You know, our Snart wasn’t half as aggressively nosy as you are.”

“Trust me, the looks from your Mickey are all I need to know how different we were.” Leo invites himself into the mostly empty galley, eyes scanning the writing on Sara. It isn’t socially acceptable to stare at someone else’s words, but hard not to. When Sara still had her words, she never tried to hide them. Now though she pulls down her sleeve. Letting someone see your soul mark is one thing, letting a nosy, gossipy someone see her conversations with her soulmate is another. “I think it’s about time I return to my earth.”

“Aw, is the Legends lifestyle too exciting for ya?” Sara teases.

“It’s plenty exciting and horrifying and sometimes a downright mess, but I think I accomplished what I set out to...at least somewhat,” Leo says, never one to hold back what he really thinks. That’s true about both of them. “And I miss my man.” Leo pushes up the sleeve of his shirt, showing off the words on his forearm. “This thing itches like a bitch. I’ve already been away for too long.”

Sara leans forward, smiling just a little at the words that had to have promised an interesting first meeting. “How does that work anyway?”

Leo gives a big, dramatic sigh. “Well, when two soulmates meet—”

“No,” Sara interrupts. “I mean, your Ray is from my earth, right? And you’re from Earth-X…”

She hopes he gets her drift, but wouldn’t put it past him to make her stumble through what she’s trying to ask just to amuse himself. Luckily, he seems to take mercy on her maybe as a parting gift or Christmas miracle.

“He came to Earth-X with a mission, joined us in the fight for our earth. Getting to know your soulmate while fighting nazis, I don’t think I have to explain what that’s like to you.”

Maybe she’s talking to the wrong half. Maybe she should be talking to his Ray. After all, he is the one who left his earth, everything and everyone there, for a greater fight, but also for his soulmate…

“Have you ever wondered why?” Sara muses.

“It's been my experience that questioning destiny accomplishes nothing, but maybe driving yourself crazy. I don’t think the universe would have given us cross-dimensional soulmates if it didn’t think we could handle it, make something of it so that’s what I’m going to do.” Leo stands from his chair across from her. “It’s been a pleasure, Captain. Mind if I give the fabrication room one last whirl before I bow out? I’ve gotta talk to the other lady in charge about having some rings made.”

“Knock yourself out, Leo.”

Once Leo leaves, Sara pushes her jean-clad leg back up, her eyes roving over the words written there and the way her handwriting weaves around Alex’s. There’s a goodnight across the arch of her foot that Sara hadn’t seen prior to Leo interrupting. Sara scribbles a goodnight back before finishing off her beer and heading to bed.

 

…

 

Alex swirls the Sharpie across the thick outside of the package, dotting the i in Maggie’s name under Ruby’s supervision. She really means it when she tells Ruby she doesn’t know how she could have gotten through this without her, giving back the last piece of Maggie she’s been holding onto.

Just as Alex thanks Ruby, the young girl gasps and grabs her chest. The spike of fear that starts in the soles of Alex’s feet and runs up the length of her body is reminiscent of every time Kara has ever put herself in danger, reminds her of where Kara is now. Alex feels that familiar fierce need to protect.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” Alex tries to keep her voice calm and soothing.

Ruby doesn’t reply, just tugs on the collar of her shirt, black ink peaking out.

Oh shit.

And this is definitely something Sam should be here for.

Ruby’s eyes start to tear up with panic. “Th-that wasn’t there this morning!”

“Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Alex finds the young girl’s arm and gives her a comforting squeeze. “Ruby, has your mom talked to you about...about soulmates?”

Alex inwardly cringes. When she agreed to look out for the kid this is definitely not what she expected. Then again if she wants kids of her own eventually...

Ruby’s eyes turn down. “Not really… I know the basics. I’m not an idiot. I have eyes and ears and basic cable… I-I asked my mom once if my dad was her soulmate… It didn’t go well so I never brought it up again…”

Yeah, Alex realizes she definitely shouldn’t be the one who gives her the talk about the words and what they mean. The last thing she wants is to step on Sam’s toes.

Ruby looks up at her, eyes all big and terrified. “Have you met your soulmate?”

“That...is a good question.” Alex brings her fingers up to the back of her neck, sliding over the words as she tries to decide how to answer. She goes with honesty. “Yes. I have.”

“Maggie?”

“No.” Alex rubs at her forearm where the pen marks have faded, mostly washed away, but Sara recounting her latest mission and hints from crossword puzzles remain. Alex genuinely tries to help and gets a little heated when Sara gives her a _hmm nope too many letters_ , which she does just to mess with her, Alex is sure. “Her name is Sara.”

“What’s she like?”

How do you even describe Sara Lance? Absolutely gorgeous, knows exactly how to get under your skin but not too much, just enough to convince you it could be a good thing, wildfire personified, kind.

“Sara is amazing,” Alex says, playing with the hair at the nape of her neck. “All the times I tried to imagine what my soulmate would be like… Sara’s better.” Her voice quiets, realizing she hasn’t said this out loud to anyone, not even Kara. “When and where we met wasn’t exactly ideal, but… My point is, it’ll happen when it happens. I just met mine a few months ago. It isn’t something you need to stress out about now.”

Thinking back, Eliza gave her similar advice so Alex knows how much easier it is to say than live. Then again, the probability that Ruby’s soulmate might almost die just to actually die just to return to life is fairly small. That Sara Lance is one of a kind alright.

“Are you and Sara not together now?”

Alex winces and takes a bit of time to think it over before answering. “Our jobs complicate things and I think… I think we both have a little more growing to do on our own before anything else, but...one day.”

Just then, the doorbell rings and Sam shouts from the hallway outside. Oh thank God! Once Ruby walks out to the elevator, Alex recounts what happened to Sam, her heart beating fast, not knowing how Sam will take it, missing her only daughter first discovering her words. Turns out Sam has been missing a lot more than just this.

 

...

 

Playing nice with the Time Bureau means it’s only natural to build a rapport with Agent Sharpe. Talking to someone who isn’t her subordinate and without the pressure of being soulmates is easy, but then Ava stutters through a suggestion to visit the Waverider for a more social call and Sara pulls the breaks fast. She’s content to ignore it, but her team seems to strive to make that difficult for her.

“What’s going on?” Sara walks in on everyone shouting at once. Not everyone. Mick seems content to drink his beer and ignore the chaos. They all go silent at Sara’s arrival. “Well?”

“Totems,” Ray answers and his voice totally cracks. To his credit, the six totems are drawn on the board right behind him. “The fire totem is in Detroit—”

“And Mick told us all about your date with Ava,” Nate blurts out. Amaya hisses his full name under her breath as three sets of eyes glare at their resident history buff. Mick still seems pretty unaffected by the whole thing. “He snoops through everyone’s phones, by the way! Why is everyone looking at me like I’m the bad guy here? You’re welcome!”

Sara crosses her arms and juts out a hip. “And you all think this is open for discussion because?”

“Well, you know my whole stance on the situation,” Zari says. “Love is worth the risk, yadda, yadda, yadda, _but_ Ray might have a point. It isn’t nice stringing poor Ava along when you’ve met your soulmate.”

“That isn’t what Sara’s doing,” Nate argues with surprising passion. “I mean, just because destiny dictates soulmates—It’s not like—it wouldn’t be the first time one or a few of us have tried to defy destiny.” When his eyes skirt over to Amaya, it’s entirely clear where the heart of his argument lies.

“Take it from someone who’s tried,” Ray interjects. “Destiny always wins out so what’s the point of prolonging the inevitable?”

The departure from Ray’s usually sunny, optimistic disposition leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth and deafening silence in the room.

“I know what would fix this,” Mick says when he finally speaks up. “Threesome.”

“We probably should have seen that coming,” Zari announces. Nate does a little punchline drum sound.

“Enough,” Sara hisses in her captain voice that has at least half the room standing a little straighter. “Focus, people. Now I’m going to sit this one out. I have some...business to take care of back home so...”

None of them buy that for a second, but Sara doesn’t stand there long enough to have to answer it. She has a date to get ready for.

Her gut screams at her not to do this, but that’s probably just the soul mark trying to manipulate her. Now thanks to the team, the words _stringing her along_ keep echoing in her head, but Sara is determined to see it through herself. Maybe it’s just in her nature to fight the current. She’s attracted to Ava, she can actually talk to Ava without staining her arms and clothes, Alex isn’t her girlfriend so why not?

Maybe forcing herself into this date is why the date ends up feeling so forced. That and Ava nixing any and all work talk, wanting to be normal. Right. Easy.

Until it isn’t at all.

It’s almost a relief when the date gets interrupted by the Waverider hurling out of the sky. Going into captain mode, fighting pirates, that’s more her normal. Sara knows she’s never going to be normal whatever that even is and right in the middle of the botched mission, she tells Ava, well, more like shouts it at Ava. Suddenly, they’re kissing and when it’s all said and done and the Legends barely scrape by in trademark Legends fashion, it’s Ava who tries to take it further.

“So you got a room on this ship?”

“Let’s find out.”

Sara falls back against her bed with Ava above her and the realization strikes. The last time she had anyone in her bed, it was Alex. No. Stop it. Sara pushes the thought away, busying herself with getting Ava out of her stiff work attire, revealing more and more skin inch by inch. She gets Ava Sharpe, all creamy and long limbed splayed out beneath her, has never been one to talk when there are better things she could be doing with her mouth yet hears herself blurt out, “You don’t have a soul mark?”

And cue the record scratch.

“No,” Ava answers, drawing away almost quicker than humanly possible. Sara is sure she’s never seen the other woman look so vulnerable. “No. I was born without one… It’s for the best, right? With the dangers of the job and all…” Hope fills Ava’s eyes as she peers up at Sara who’s half-clothed herself and with no words in sight. “You?”

Sara’s eyes fall to the burn on her arm. “Yeah…I do.”

The hurt in Ava’s eyes is enough to make her pull away even farther and the mood definitely sours. “And you’ve met this…?”

“Alex, yeah, I’ve met her.”

Ava yanks the sheets up, holding them close to her chest. “I mean, you could have mentioned it before…”

“I could have mentioned it after or not at all, but then I’d really be a jerk.” Sara tries to lighten the mood, but it falls flat. Ava finds no comfort in it whatsoever.

“Is she...?”

“She’s alive,” Sara finishes for her. “I hate to be a cliche, but our relationship or lack thereof really is complicated. All my relationships have a way of being...complicated.”

“And this? Us? How did you expect to make it less complicated when you already have complicated?”

Sara rubs at her forehead. “Ava…”

“I mean, our names even start with the same letter!” Ava shouts. “Is she also an agent for an organization dedicated to protecting the timeline?”

“No,” Sara says and even she hears the childish quality to her voice. “She’s an agent for an organization that monitors extra-terrestrial activity. And she’s a brunette so.”

“For a minute there, I thought…” Ava exhales a sigh and the disappointment borderline sadness in the short sound has Sara wishing she could just disappear. “I’m not going to be a stand-in until you can get back to your soulmate.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“Then what is it?”

And when Sara can’t answer, Ava starts picking up her clothes and getting dressed. Sara watches Ava walk through a portal she creates right where the door should be before grabbing a pen off the nightstand. When it doesn’t write, ink dried to hell, Sara tosses it into the trash where a dozen other dead pens have piled up and grabs a fresh one off her desk.

 _I don’t know what I’m doing anymore Alex_ , she scribbles right across her arm. Sara tucks the pen behind her ear and waits impatiently.

Her arm tickles as words appear: _She lives!_

_Bad joke considering…_

_Hi. What’s going on?_

Sara finds herself smiling down at the pretty handwriting on her skin. Just seeing it has become oddly comforting. It would be easy to be angry, resentful of this bond that she didn’t choose or ask for and take it out on Alex. It would make sense in a human kind of way, but she can’t bring herself to. If anything, ruining things with Ava just makes her feel more alone, a loneliness she knows only one person can fill. Ava has a point. Sara doesn’t want her to be a substitute for Alex either.

_If you met someone on your earth and were attracted to them would you_

Sara realizes what a spectacularly bad idea this is only after passing the point of no return. She realizes she doesn’t want to know. She realizes she’s never asked about Maggie, the woman Alex was desperate to get back to. She doesn’t want to know that either. Well, this is dumb. The only way this could get dumber is if she tried to take it back and just scribble out the words with marker, which she’s tempted to.

It doesn’t help that Alex takes forever to respond.

_I haven’t been in that situation yet so I can’t say. You?_

Sara doesn’t know how to answer that, but eventually decides, to be honest. If you can’t be honest with your soulmate who can you be honest with?

_I tried to defy destiny and maybe hurt someone in the process_

_Destiny 1 Sara 0_

And if Sara’s honesty in turn hurts Alex, it’ll be more:

Destiny 1 Sara -1000000

 _But_ , Alex writes. And Sara’s already expecting the worst. _I thought historical figures love a time traveling ninja?_

Alex even dots all the i’s in the sentences with hearts and it startles a laugh out of Sara. She feels tingling on her thigh and shoves her jeans the rest of the way off to see it.

_Sara this soulmates thing is weird. I don’t think there’s just one way to figure it out and I don’t think I can judge you for how you try_

Yeah, so apparently Alex’s grace and goodness stretch across the multiverse. Alex Danvers is perfect.

Before Sara can respond with something like _I don’t deserve you_ or _I think I miss you_ , two things she feels, but isn’t quite sure she should share, Alex beats her to it with:

_Just keep the bite marks from historical figures to a minimum_

Sara chuckles and when she does write back, she settles for: _oh the things I could tell you about the Queen of France_

_Go to sleep Sara_

She never gets tired of seeing her name in Alex’s handwriting. Never.

_Squeezing in a little training actually. You’ve been warned babe!_

_I’ll prep the ice bath_

Sara nearly groans at the mental image of Alex soaking wet after a hot and heavy workout. Before she can let herself get carried away, Sara leaves her room to train. Seriously, she could’ve gotten laid tonight and instead, she’ll be expelling her frustration in a completely different way.

“So,” Nate says when she passes him down the hallway, “is it true what they say — soulmate sex ruins you for like all other sex with anyone else?”

Correction: she’ll be expelling her frustration by kicking Nate’s ass.

 

…

 

The power-dampening bracelet is supposed to stop the psychic bleed from M’yrnn’s ritual so Alex doesn’t know why she still feels like this. If she’s being honest, she’s been feeling off for the last few days. An unexplained ringing in her ears. Freaky dreams of a scary little girl skipping down darkened hallways.

Alex shifts anxiously from side to side, watching Winn work. “What’s taking so long?”

“Um,” Winn says, eyes focused, fingers flying, “you gave me a picture of code an assassin wrote on your hand, directions from an AI to establish communication with a timeship either in a different time or idling in the temporal zone? It’s a little more difficult than dialing a number and hitting call.”

“There’s something wrong,” Alex mutters more to herself. “It’s like she’s… I can’t feel her there, but the words—”

“For the millionth time, your words are still there.”

“But faded,” Alex points out. “They’ve always been blurry, but bold. I spent all afternoon searching every database we have access to and no record of anyone’s words _fading_.”

“I bet you can search those same databases and find zero records of anyone having a soulmate who was born in a different universe. This is ground-breaking stuff. Should we be documenting it?”

Winn reaches toward her as if to push her hair aside and see her words so she slaps his hand away probably harder than necessary. “Focus, Winn!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going as fast as I can!”

 _You’ve always feared you’re a monster,_ a deep voice whispers _. Now a monster you have become._

Alex rubs the heel of her hand against her forehead. What the hell? Where do these thoughts keep coming from?

“Ah, well, that explains some of it.” Winn’s hands still as he stares at one of his screens. Alex nearly vaults out of her chair and leans over his shoulder for her own look. It’s a message from Cisco over at STAR Labs. They’re unable to make contact with the Waverider either.

“Nostromo sequence?” Alex frowns.

“They’re basically in lockdown and entirely on their own.” Winn relaxes in his seat and frowns when he reads the concern that must be all over Alex. “Hey, if half the things I’ve heard about your soulmate are true, I’m sure she has everything under control.”

Alex has to turn away when she starts to feel the water glaze her eyes. She trusts Sara’s capabilities, but she also trusts her instincts. Something isn’t right. Alex feels worried and sick and frustrated. Winn doesn’t get it. No one gets it. No one knows how she feels right now. It feels like the calm before the storm where she almost loses Sara again and can one woman be so lucky to escape death as many times as Sara already has?

_The darkness has always been within us._

“Alex…” Winn’s voice softens with sympathy and when he tries to bring her in for a hug, Alex moves out of his reach and tells him to keep trying. She returns to her lab and paces back and forth. She grabs the nearest marker and shoves up her sleeve. _Sara are you okay_? She waits.

Relief floods her when she sees writing start to appear, but then her heart sinks when she realizes it’s all wrong. Sara’s handwriting is bigger and loopy, this is more like someone carving letters into wood or flesh.

 _Sara Lance is lost to you_ appears across Alex’s pale skin. _I am death._

Terror tickles at her toes and spreads throughout the rest of her body.

“Sara,” Alex hisses and her voice comes out hoarse.

_Once a killer, always a killer._

“Don’t listen to whoever the hell that is, Sara.” Alex brings her fingers to her neck and presses hard as if could touch Sara through them. It feels silly, but what other options does she have?

_It’s your destiny. You were born to wield the death totem for Mallus_

“Who the fuck is Mallus?” Alex hisses, squeezing her temple.

_The totem’s power is within you, Sara, all you have to do is decide_

“Sara,” Alex hears herself pleading.

_A life free of pain and regret with us or the tormented half-life you’re living now?_

_“Sara, I know you’re still in there. You are the strongest, most fearless person I’ve ever met.”_ That’s another voice, a female voice Alex doesn’t recognize from when she met the Legends. _“When did a Legend ever go quietly?”_

 _“She has a point, captain.”_ That one is a familiar voice. Dr. Ray Palmer. _“Without you, none of us would probably be here anymore. We started this thing as a team and we’ll finish it as a team.”_

 _“It’s like I told you before, you are a stubborn, infuriating pain in my ass.”_ That’s Zari. _“Because you need to be. Because even Legends need a kick in the ass from time to time…or all the time. You aren’t just the captain of this ship, you’re its soul.”_

“ _Hey_ ,” Mick says gruffly. _“If the boss bails on us, I get dibs on comforting the soulmate, right?”_

All the voices voice their distaste at once and Alex can’t help the laugh that escapes her and the tears that spill over.

 _“Dude, have you met Alex?”_ That’s Nate, the one with the good hair. _“So, so out of your league even if she were—”_

“ _Guys, focus_ ,” Ray hisses, dropping his trademark politeness in favor of direct action. They had spent many a nights and pen marks with Sara telling her Ray would be next in line to be captain based on seniority and how she hoped if that day ever came he’d be ready for it.

“ _Sara_ ,” Amaya says, her voice steady and strong. _“Come home.”_

_“You can do it, love. Come home.”_

_“Captain Lance, your team needs you. The world needs you.”_

_“Get your ass back here, boss.”_

“ _Your family’s waiting, Sara,_ ” Alex whispers even as the voices in her head overlap and crescendo. _“Destiny didn’t give you the death totem. It gave you me. Don’t make me travel across thirty-seven earths, space and time to drag you back to where you belong, where you’re needed. Come home.”_

Alex shuts her eyes tight and if she were the religious type, she’d pray. Instead, she relies on faith, her faith in Sara.

 _“No_.” That’s Sara’s voice in her head and already, Alex feels stronger. “ _No to a life without pain or regret. No to being a demon’s lackey and no to bringing more death into this world_.”

Just like that, all the voices in her head, the ringing in her ears, it all vanishes. Alex scans her darkened, empty lab, unsure how long she had been crouched on the floor with tears running down her cheeks. She runs her fingers along her words and knows they’re back to their usual, blurry yet bold state. She doesn’t know how Sara keeps dodging these bullets (with help from her team and family) and Alex doesn’t even want to think about how close she’d been to losing Sara again.

Later, just as she’s getting ready to leave for her apartment, which feels emptier than ever, Winn stops her. His hair is askew and his shirt is rumpled, but he’s extra proud of himself when he announces that he figured out how to make contact with the Waverider and there’s already a call waiting for her.

Alex sits in the empty room, awed by the sight of Sara even if it is through a cross-universe transmission. Sometimes you just have to take what you can get and roll with it.

“Hey, it’s nice to see your face.” Alex has to curl her fingers in to keep from reaching out to touch the screen.

“Nice to hear your voice,” Sara shoots back, “you know, outside of a demon realm.”

“So that explains all the self-doubt and the demonic voice in my head.”

“No, that was all me.” Sara meets her eyes even though it’s through a camera and the relief Alex expects to see isn’t there. Far from it. “Listen, Alex, I called to tell you that you’re probably better off forgetting you ever met me. We live very different lives, we’re on different earths, this was never going to work out anyway.”

Alex blinks. “Where is this coming from right now?”

“You deserve better.”

Pressing her lips tight together, Alex takes that in along with Sara’s tired, defeated posture and she doesn’t like it. “Wanna know what I think? I think you’re selling yourself short.”

“Because you don’t know me.”

“And you don’t think I deserve the chance to get to know you?”

Sara stares upward, so ready to break, more fragile than Alex imagined possible. “Since we’ve met, I hooked up with a demonologist and tried to hook up with a time agent, but that stalled out when she found out about the whole soulmate thing. Now I’m telling you what I told her. You. Deserve. Better. That’s not me. At this point, I don’t even deserve to be a Legend…”

“You may think that, but if all this demons and totems talk is half as serious as it sounds, your team needs you,” Alex says, and she’s aware she sounds like she’s lecturing right now, but she doesn’t care. “I heard them, Sara. I heard all of that. They need you and they love you and I think you need and love them just as much. You can run and hide from me, that’s fine, but don’t do that to your team.”

The blonde doesn’t reply right away, instead pursing her lips. “I’m sorry for everything, the wedding, everything before, whatever happens now. Just...make the most of your life. You deserve the best, Danvers.”

“You too,” Alex whispers after the transmission cuts out.

 

…

 

_That time agent I told you about turned out to be a clone from 2213_

Sara considers writing that across her arm just so she could imagine Alex’s reaction, a squint, maybe a little head shake. Definitely peeved since it’s been radio silent between them since the whole first time they talked face-to-face-ish and Sara told her she’s better off without her. A funny anecdote involving clones is a good icebreaker and the best way to say, hey, you were right, by the way, I didn’t quit on my team, right? To be quickly followed by _should I work with my sister’s murderer to save the multiverse?_ Then draw boxes with _check yes or no_ below.

Before Sara can decide to write anything, words appear on her arm first.

_Alex is sick_

Her heart leaps in her chest and not in a good way. That isn’t Alex’s handwriting. It’s frantic chicken scratch like the person who wrote it knew they were running out of time. Sara nearly drops her glass when her head starts to spin. She has been feeling crappy, lagging, ill, but just chalked it up to the disaster that’s been her life for the past month (years). Stupid. She should have suspected something sooner.

“Ray!” Sara shouts, setting the glass aside and grabbing the tricked out time courier she picked up from Cisco before her date with Ava back in 2018. She hadn’t had a chance to test it out, but there’s no time like the present. “You wanted the captain’s chair? It’s yours. Darhk doesn’t leave the ship before I get back.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Rip shouts after her.

Ray’s eyes are wide when he meets hers and she knows he must have seen the writing on her arm. “Go.”

Ignoring Rip and Ava’s protest behind her, Sara opens a portal to what she hopes is Earth-38. She arrives in a room with glass walls and fluorescent lighting. Fingerless Gloves or his doppleganger is in the bed closest to the door with another man getting teary at his bedside. When Sara lays eyes on Alex, her back to the door, wheezing and gasping, her legs feel weak and not in a rom com kind of way. The man in the tie reacts defensively, but all Sara has to do is show him the pen scratches on her arm and he stands down.

“Alex...” Sara has a hand on Alex’s arm before she can bring herself to turn to face her. She doesn’t care what has Alex so sick, if it’s contagious, she needs to touch her, to feel her warm and alive. Their eyes lock and Alex’s chest heaves like it takes so much conscious effort to do something as simple as breathe.

“S-Sara?”

“She’s two for three remembering my name,” Sara teases, trying not to get choked up, seeing a woman who had impressed her with her strength and determination appear so pale and drained. Sara lets her fingers slide across the back of Alex’s neck and over her words.

Alex moans and pushes back against her touch. “W-what are you doing here? D-Did you fight y-your demon?”

“It’s an ongoing thing.”

Movement catches her eye and Sara sees the man in the tie push a chair toward her. Sara thanks him with a smile, drags the chair closer and sits at Alex’s bedside.

“Supergirl and the DEO are out there right now finding a cure,” the man says. “All we can do right now is wait.”

“I’ve seen firsthand what a Danvers will do for her sister. I’m sure Supergirl is breaking sound barriers on her way back as we speak.” Sara tries to keep the fear that keeps threatening to consume her at bay, plastering on a friendly smile. “I’m Sara, by the way.”

“James.”

“Winn,” the other man coughs from the other bed, lifting a hand weakly. “Alex isn’t what you’d call a chatterbox, especially when it comes to soulmates, but—”

“Ignore him,” James interjects with an embarrassed smile. “Must be the drugs talking.”

“Drugs that Alex pumped into me,” Winn whines weakly.

Alex puffs out her cheeks as her barely open eyes skirt back to Sara. “Do me a favor? Punch him like as hard as you possibly can for me.”

“Trust me, it’ll be a lot more satisfying when you’re back on your feet and can punch him yourself.” Sara lets her fingers dance across Alex’s words in a pattern she hopes is comforting. James excuses himself from the room to make a phone call and Winn turns over in bed, trying to give them some semblance of privacy.

“I was gonna pay young Obama a visit for some advice, but I couldn’t see this Crayola bat signal on my arm and not come running.”

Alex’s eyes slip closed, but she still whispers, “As long as you aren’t running away…”

“Oh, what’s there to run from? Let’s see, the temporal cracks, Amaya stole the jump ship to go rogue, I have my former captain and almost ex and their entire Time Bureau on my ass to let them handle the demon that possessed me and Ray thinks we should work with the guy who killed my sister if it means saving the world. The crazy part is...I think it might be worth a shot, but again, he killed my sister.”

She eases up when she thinks she might be grabbing onto Alex too hard, but then Alex brings her hand up and over Sara’s slotting their fingers together. “Not to mention,” Sara continues, “I kinda tried to fuck things up with my soulmate.”

“Sara, if I don’t make it and this is the last time we see each other—” Alex erupts in a fit of coughs and Sara feels her entire body tense, waiting for it to subside.

“Hey, don’t say that,” Sara says through a clenched jaw. “Supergirl is going to find a cure. You’re going to be fine, Alex.”

Sara wonders if she can create a portal back to the Waverider and have Gideon heal her and her friend. She’s tempted, but the rational part of her brain argues that there are too many variables to consider. They might not be able to handle the physiological strain of traveling between earths, especially thirty-seven of them. Not to mention, Darhk is onboard in a cage of his own creation. Bringing Alex into that situation when she can barely catch her breath...

“Sara, are you even listening?” Alex squeezes her hand hard and even that is less than half strength. “I don’t want how we played out t-to add to why you don’t think you deserve to be loved because you do.” Sara feels a protest on her lips, but gets distracted by the fierce indignation in Alex’s eyes. “ _You do_. I’ve been thinking… I want a family, wife, kids, all that, but family’s also the people you choose. You and the Legends choose each other every time you go out and risk your lives together, for the greater good and each other. I want you to know how special that is. You deserve to have that.”

“Yeah?” Sara smiles wide despite the finality in every word Alex struggles to get out. “Anything else you wanna share, _mom_?”

Alex licks at her dry lips, gathering the energy to say what she needs to. “And all the other stuff…” Alex takes a deep breath and Sara nearly pleads for her not to talk, to save her energy. Not that she would expect Alex to listen. Too stubborn. Almost as stubborn as Sara herself. “Did I ever tell you about the time I was on another earth and this badass in white leather told me to trust my instincts? If you think the Time Bureau can handle the demon, let them. If not, you should probably go and do as Legends do.”  

Sara grips Alex’s hand in hers and kisses her knuckles. “How am I supposed to just leave you here like this?”

“You’ll be back,” Alex replies, giving in to the heaviness of her eyelids yet again. “After you save the world…”

“You’re so sure about that?” Sara grins and she can’t remember the last time her mouth made this shape.

Alex hums and jerks her chin in a sleepy nod. “Super.”

Sara spares a second to memorize everything about Alex from the cut of her hair to the slope of her nose and down the length of her pretty neck, but not the words. Not yet. When she finally reads the words for the first time, Alex is going to be healthy and vibrant and want her to see them. Sara slips off one of her silver rings and slides it onto Alex’s middle finger. "Rest up, babe."

Alex groans. "Y-you did not j-just call me..."

"You love it," Sara sing-songs, kissing her hand again, just above where the ring sits and fits her well. 

When she walks through a portal of her own creation, Sara makes sure not to look back. She knows if she even sneaks the smallest of peaks over her shoulder, she’ll lose whatever momentum is pushing her forward. She knows if she looks back, she’ll never be able to leave her again.

 

…

 

Alex recovers the very same night and she’s only a little annoyed Winn recovered before her _and_ got back to work sooner. _Such_ a suck up.

She would have thought she imagined Sara at her bedside if not for the familiar silver ring that hadn’t been around her finger the last time she was fully conscious. Even if Sara hadn’t left her a keepsake, the heart eyes from Winn and James, both practically bursting with how they want to tease her, confirm it was real. So much of her life before the West-Allen wedding had been wondering and stressing about her soulmate who could have only been a crazy person. Now, she still stresses, knowing what Sara is up against, but trusts her to do what she needs to do.

And Alex’s own crazy life goes on.

Kara leaves Earth.

An attempt is made on Alex’s life (more than once).

J’onn mandates the DEO switch to non-lethal weaponry.

They get Sam back.

M’yrnn says goodbye.

All of life is change.

Three Kryptonians attack the DEO and all hell breaks loose.

Alex squares her shoulders and fights like she’s National City’s greatest line of defense. With Supergirl off earth, she kind of is. This is what she trained for. The bullets and gloves tricked out with Kryptonite help too.

She shouts for Demos to run and sends those witches flying out of the room with Kryptonite bullets imbedded in their skin, fully embracing the ache when a metal lab table breaks her fall.

“Pretty impressive, Danvers. Not that I should be surprised at this point.”

She’d know that voice anywhere. It makes her heart thud in an entirely different way than y’know fighting aliens that could easily snap her in half. A freckled arm comes into view, then fingers encircled with familiar rings.

“Sara?” Alex clasps the outstretched hand and is pulled to her feet.

“Who were those bitches?” Sara asks, on guard, ready for a fight.  

“Long story,” Alex pants. “What are you doing here? Where’s the rest of your team?”

“Aruba. Thought we could all use a little time off after defeating Mallus.”

Alex brightens at the good news and, yeah, she feels it—how much lighter and less burdened Sara is. It’s a nice change.

“I want to hear all about it later,” Alex says, heading for the door. “Kind of in the middle of something right now though!” Alex pauses and spins back around when she realizes Sara isn’t following her, instead drinking in the sight of her with her bottom lip between her teeth.

“This suit new?” Sara asks, practically licking her lips. The head tilt she gives her is entirely too reminiscent of the first night they met at the bar. “Where’ve you been hiding this from me?”

Alex rolls her eyes. “We really don’t have time for this!”

“And you cut your hair.”

Alex swallows hard. Yeah, her hair is shorter. If it weren’t for the collar of her tac suit, her words would be on full display. In civilian clothes, the words are on full display for the world to see. This is how she chooses to live her life now. Before Sara can sneak a touch, Alex grabs her arm and practically drags the former assassin out the door, ignoring her own spike of desire and the shiver at knowing Sara can’t stop staring, knowing Sara wants her. All of that evaporates the moment they peer over the railing and see Demos laid out and motionless on the DEO floor.

 

…

 

On her first trip to Earth-38, Sara didn’t see much more than the inside of a single DEO room. Not that she’d care much for sightseeing even if Alex wasn’t, oh, dying. On her second trip, the earth is literally crumbling.

As much as Sara wanted to bask in vacation mode, maybe spend it getting to know (and wooing) her soulmate, J’onn says they need all boots on the ground to evacuate the city and Sara is ready to help in any way she can.

What’s happening is awful and terrifying, but despite all of this, being at Alex’s side again feels better than it should. Watching Alex give orders, following Alex’s orders, feeling Alex’s concern spike when she realizes she’s just out of reach of a little girl in trouble, Sara sprinting to save the little girl from falling debris — it all feels _right_. She feels stronger, completely in sync, not just knowing Alex has her back, but feeling it. It’s kind of crazy knowing she risks her life all the time without this extra safety net when she could have it, could have Alex by her side all the time.

“You know—” Sara uses borrowed DEO tech to send a force field clear across the sky, catching shattered glass before it falls on fleeing civilians. Pretty cool. “—if you were a Legend, people probably wouldn’t be using our team name to describe when someone tries to save the world, royally screws up, but miraculously gets the job done.”

“Weird,” Alex retorts, helping a man to his feet and directing him to safety. “I was just thinking about the damage you could do with actual DEO clearance and Kryptonite weapons.”

“Less flirting, more hero-ing,” Guardian chides in his deep, disguised voice as he runs pass them to help a family trapped in a car. Alex rolls her eyes before chasing after him and Sara joins them with a grin that’s totally inappropriate given the dire situation, but she can’t help it. It’s scary how easy it would be to get used to this.

 

...

 

Alex feels a tickle on the back of her hand and looks down to see a drawing of a heart. She looks across the room and sees Sara and Ruby grinning conspiratorially. Honestly, the sight makes her heart melt a little. Then again, it shouldn’t surprise her. If Sara gets along with Mick, she can probably get along with anyone.

“What are you two up to?” Alex looks between Sara and Ruby suspiciously. The younger girl’s eyes light up when she sees the heart on Alex’s hand that matches the heart on Sara’s.

“Just getting to know my new friend,” Sara answers. “Ruby here told me you’re responsible for the blue.” Sara nods to the tips of Ruby’s hair. “And the red.” Sara tilts her head to Alex. “I’m a little hurt I wasn’t invited to the party.”

“You should totally go pink!” Ruby insists. “It would look so great on you!”

Sara drums her hands against the metal lab table. “Sold. Pink it is.”

Ruby beams at Sara like thinks she’s the coolest person in the universe and yeah, there might be an actual argument for that. When Sam starts twisting from side to side and groaning as if in pain, worry washes over Ruby’s face and has her scurrying back to her mom’s side.

“She’s a strong kid,” Sara whispers. “I can’t imagine going through something like this at that age…”

Alex’s lips tug to one side. “I wasn’t much older than Ruby when Kara came to live with us and I lost my dad not too long after… I wish I handled it with half the grace and strength Ruby has…”

“Sounds to me like she had a lot of help. Did I ever tell you about the time I visited another earth and an alien busting agent lectured me on found family?” Sara’s hand brushes over the back of Alex’s, where a crooked little heart is drawn. “Also, Ruby might have told me about you taking her in and trying to cheer her up by giving her access to your motorcycle? She’s twelve, Alex.”

“Okay, if someone let me ride a motorcycle when I was twelve, I would’ve loved them forever. Done deal.” Despite everything, Alex finds it in her to joke and smile. Sara has that effect on her. “It is a great motorcycle.”

“I bet. I can’t wait to see you on it.” The desire is clear in Sara’s darkened eyes, but she still keeps a professional distance with Lena and Ruby and countless other agents buzzing around in every which way direction.

Alex breaks the eye contact and suddenly, it’s hard to breathe, but not because of a plague outbreak this time. “Sara, if we don’t stop Reign…”

“Then I’m throwing you over my shoulder and dragging you back to my earth.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Is that a challenge, Danvers?”

Alex takes another deep breath, letting her fingers run over the burn on Sara’s arm. “If we don’t stop Reign, you need to get out of here. Your earth needs you. The Legends need you.”

“Then I guess we’re lucky Supergirl and her super friends are going to stop Reign, aren’t we?”

Alex doesn’t say anything to that, but when Sara finally gives in the smallest bit, letting her hand wander across the waist of Alex’s tac suit, hooking an arm around her hip, Alex leans into the embrace. It isn’t long before Sam is floating out of her bed, snapping awake and ready for the fight of her life.

 

...

 

“I need you to find me a disturbance.”

“A disturbance?”

“I need to go back in time like the Legion.”

A cold sweat breaks out over Sara’s skin when she hears that. She had to have heard wrong, right?

“If I can go back in time, I could use the electricity…”

Kara continues to explain her plan while Winn volleys back with practical concerns. Sara was content to go where she was told and do as she was told, stay in her lane. This isn’t the Waverider. This isn’t even her earth, but she can’t silently stand by and let this happen.

“Time travel?” Sara practically spits the words. “You can’t just—Barry created a whole different reality when he went back in time to prevent his mother’s death! My team and I are already constantly fixing rifts in time! Do you know the domino effect this could cause? You don’t! That’s why time travel is so dangerous!”

“Just find me a disturbance now!”

Winn jumps to follow Supergirl’s orders. She doesn’t understand what she’s about to do. She can’t.

“Hey.” Alex steps in front of her so she’s all Sara sees, big brown eyes and gentle hands cupping her face.

“Even Supergirl can’t get away with playing with time!” Sara shouts. “If we went back in time to change something every time we made a mistake or something went wrong on a mission— If I went back in time to save my sister, there’s no way to calculate or predict the million other things I would selfishly be stealing from myself and others, just for who knows how much longer!”

“I know,” Alex whispers, tugging her closer despite all the activity all around them and all the eyes. Sara gives into her warmth and closeness, pressing against her, burying her face in Alex’s shoulder.

“There are going to be consequences,” Sara mutters. “There always are.”

“I know,” Alex says again. “And we’ll deal with them together.”

 

...

 

Supergirl and the super friends (i.e. Sam) save the day.

Ruby jumps to hug Alex and then Lena and the young girl looks happier than she has in months. Alex would probably be amused by Lena Luthor’s reaction to a hug if she wasn’t preoccupied with how much this feels like _goodbye_.

“Well, I mean, you’re a pretty great roomie,” Alex says.

“If you’re looking for a new roomie, I’d say I know a certain someone who’d be more than happy to jump on that,” Lena says suggestively as they all turn their eyes to Sara across the way, wowing a couple of lower level agents with the way she can spin a bo staff. Sam gives Lena an absolute warning of a look and Ruby just giggles.

Alex tries to will down her blush as Lena gives Sam the good news. Seeing the way Sam and Ruby embrace, their relief that this is all over, their love, plays a big part in why she seeks out J’onn to talk. He is very much her family and has done so much for her, more than either of them realize probably, so she doesn’t want to seem ungrateful or like she’s turning her back on him or the DEO.

“I put my life on the line every day and every day I run the risk of losing it,” Alex explains, sure to speak clearly and confidently. It’s only something she’s been thinking about long before the wedding that changed everything. “And I feel like I haven’t really had the chance to live it. I’m afraid if I don’t make a move soon, if I don’t reach out and take hold of my future, what my heart really wants, I won’t ever be happy. So that being said, I want to give notice… So that I can find my new beginning...”

“And what your heart wants is to go to another earth and live on a timeship with a former assassin and a team that calls themselves…Legends?”

 _Yes, yes, yes_ , her heart sings.

Sara has referred to herself as “mama” and the other legends as children. Someone might have also described them as Snow White and the Totem Bearers if Snow White could crush you with any assortment of household items and her hands tied behind her back. Sara assured her that cleanliness is a big deal on the ship. There’s a chore schedule and everything.

Alex shrugs her shoulders shyly and feels like she’s twelve again, afraid to see disappointment on her father’s face when he looks at her. “I deserve to figure it out, don’t I?”

“You do,” J’onn agrees. “But you can’t resign. Because I want to promote you.”

Alex stares back at him in a way she can only describe as _dumbly._

“I want you to run this place, be the director.” He holds out a hand as if to halt the protest he can already sense. “Not this minute, not even tomorrow, but one day. If I let you take off to another earth with a time traveler, which you don’t need my permission to do, by the way, I know for a fact you’ll just end up kicking ass and saving lives wherever you go. You’re a hero. It’s in your blood. You can’t run from that and you don’t want to. You deserve to figure it out, you deserve to have a family, be a mother, all of that, all on your terms and in time. Once you do figure it out, you’ll be back and if you can convince that soulmate of yours to eventually put down roots here...she has heart and skill. I think she’d do the DEO proud.”

Alex honestly tries not to tear up. She’s been doing that a lot in the last forty-eight hours it seems. “She also has a tendency to disregard orders and authority figures in general.”

J’onn smiles. “And by then, you will be the director and disciplinary action will be all in your hands.”

Alex groans dramatically, but it quickly becomes a smile. There’s love and pride where she thought she might find disappointment. “Okay. I like the sound of one day.”

“Congratulations, future director.”

 

...

 

Seeing Alex completely fail at keeping herself together and getting weepy over Winn leaving for the future is honestly surreal and fucking adorable. Sara makes a mental note to check in with Jax, maybe stop in to grab a beer with him and catch up before she returns to the Waverider whenever that might be.

“It was nice meeting you.” Winn pulls Sara into a warm hug even though they technically just met. “Do me a favor? Take care of this one for me.” Winn catches Alex rubbing at the wetness beneath her eyes. “I don’t know which of you is the one who gets into the bar fight with the drunk misogynist at karaoke and which holds the other back and I’m kinda sad I won’t be here to find out.”

“You never know, we might see each other in the future,” Sara says.

“Like literally. Ah. Is that time traveler humor?” Winn is so happy he might burst. “I should warn you my pun game is strong.”

God, it’s way too easy seeing him becoming fast friends with the other Legends. Sara shouldn’t want to smile at that thought, but she does. “Travel safe, Fingerless Gloves.”

Winn tilts his head confusedly. “Fingerless Gloves?”

“It’s an Earth-X thing,” Alex explains, waving a hand through the air and naturally gravitating close to Sara’s side. “You had to be there. Actually, it’s probably better you weren’t.”

“Probably.” Winn goes in for one last group hug, sandwiching Sara and Alex together, before moving on to Kara, a goodbye that proves to be just as sappy and beautiful.

With everyone focused on Winn, Sara takes the opportunity to shift closer to Alex, so much so their hips brush.  

“Agent Danvers, after saving the world, I think it’s safe to say you have earned a hot bath and ten hours of uninterrupted sleep.”

As if reading her thoughts, Alex narrows her eyes. “Do you mean ten hours of interrupted sleep or…?”

“Why not both? As much as I love you in this suit, I’d much rather—”

“Pizza!” Kara shouts, making the two of them jump. “Come on, everyone! It’s on me!”

Sara gets the strangest vibe from Kara like not all is completely right, but it’s been a long day, she’s content to shrug it off especially when Alex’s expression is equal parts apologetic and amused.

“Yeah, yeah.” Sara hooks an arm around Alex’s neck, sure she pushed up her sleeve to her elbow so where her words once were touch where Alex’s are. “You’re lucky I am a sucker for sisters.”

 

…

 

“Can I kiss your words if I promise to keep my eyes closed?”

Alex’s breath hitches at Sara’s question, the candor in her quiet voice that sounds so loud in the near silence of the bathroom. She feels all flushed from the heat of the water she’s half submerged in, bubbles prickling against her skin up around her shoulders.

“Just look,” Alex murmurs. “I want you to see them.”

The sudsy water shifts and sloshes when Sara pulls Alex so she’s nestled comfortably between her legs. She draws a finger across Alex’s neck, pushing her dripping hair to one side so she can better see the words written there. Sara drops the lightest of kisses to Alex’s shoulder, slowly moving closer and closer to where they both know she really wants her lips.

“Quite a mouthful,” Sara says huskily. The heat of her breath against Alex’s slick skin makes her shiver. “Should I be apologizing?”

Alex leans back against Sara and tilts her head so she can meet her eyes that are like sapphires set on fire. “When I was younger, I used to think, gross, that is _such_ a _line_. No way I’m going to fall for that.”

Sara chuckles and Alex feels the vibration of it travel throughout her entire body. “I mean, you did literally fall. Can you imagine if ‘how’s your butt’ was on here instead?”

“Please don’t.” Alex groans, which quickly dissolves into a moan when Sara nips at the place where her shoulder and neck meet, at the chain around her neck. Sara’s ring is on it, resting between Alex’s breasts.

Instead of teasing her further, like Alex half-expects, Sara sounds startlingly serious when she asks, “Are you gonna ask about mine?”

One of Sara’s arms slips around Alex’s waist beneath the soapy water while the other, the one with the angry pink burn hangs on the edge of the tub, mostly dry. Alex leans away from Sara and the blonde whines irritably, the sound of which just makes Alex want to roll her eyes and smile at the same time. She presses her lips to where the words once were before peering back at Sara from over the curve of her naked shoulder.

“Feel that?” Alex asks.

The way Sara stares at her, all of her default teasing and mask of cool melted down, somewhere between desire and worship, something Alex glimpsed and ran from, is back. Sara, who is often too good with words, can only manage the smallest of nods.

“Unless you want to tell me, knowing that is good enough for me.” Alex kisses the same spot, sucking gently.

Of all the times Alex has wanted to just be close to Sara, craved her strength and how she makes her feel safe even when they barely knew each other, this feels different. She wouldn’t be surprised if her eyes mirrored Sara’s in what can only be mutual worship.

Of all the adventures she’s been on and all the times she’s risked everything to keep the city safe, this feels scarier. Mostly because it’s supposed to be fated, supposed to be inevitable, but also, in the time they’ve known each other and the time before, it’s also been the complete opposite of what it was supposed to be, completely opposite of how this soulmate thing is supposed to play out. But that also makes it the most exciting and worth it.

“How long do you think we can go without aliens attacking the city or someone trying destroy all of time?” Sara pulls Alex against her, thick foam crackling as Alex’s head falls to Sara’s shoulder. They fit so well together and it shouldn’t be surprising at this point, but every time she realizes it, every time they both do, it feels like something precious, something that should be guarded with their lives.

“I’ve been doing this a while now and that ten hours of uninterrupted sleep you were talking about is a total pipe dream,” Alex says, letting her fingers dive through the water and just brush over the inside of Sara’s thigh. “I wouldn't be surprised if your kids were right outside, arguing about who has to interrupt us with some minor emergency. Mick is probably raiding my fridge as we speak.”

“Okay, can we not mention Mick when we’re naked?” Sara strokes over Alex’s hip, making her wriggle against her. “Whatever happens now, we deal with it together.”

Alex hums pleasantly, enjoying what Sara’s doing with her hands, but also her words. She doesn’t think anything she says can communicate the way she feels and decides to just show her, grabbing her face with wet hands and pulling her into a long, tender kiss.

They stay in the tub for what feels like a blissful eternity, until they’re both thoroughly coated in foam and the water cools. They build bubbly barriers between their bodies then tear them down, never letting anything keep them apart for too long ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://beezyland.tumblr.com/)


End file.
